Long-Awaited Bridge Expected to Relieve Traffic

Residents near Cherry Hill Road in Reisterstown are anticipating that a decade of traffic woes will stop once a long-awaited bridge extending the road to Owings Mills Boulevard opens next month.

The $8 million road extension and bridge is tentatively scheduled to open on July 19 after a year of uninterrupted construction.

“Oh, we’re happy, but we would’ve liked to have had it years ago,” said Charlie Smith, who has lived on nearby Kingsbury Road for 47 years. “But it’s better than not at all.”

The project has been in the works for at least 30 years, with the county acquiring the right-of-way and necessary permits in bits and pieces, said David Fidler, spokesman for the Baltimore County of Public Works.

“These things take forever because design takes a long time,” Fidler said.

Part of the challenge in designing the extension was the geography of the area, which necessitated a three-span, 23-foot high bridge. The extension spans a wetland area, a portion of Gwynns Falls and a CSX railway line.

The 800-foot road is expected to alleviate what had become a burden of heavy traffic and speeders in the nearby residential neighborhood. The streets weren’t designed to accommodate the volume of cars and trucks cutting through from Cherry Hill Road to Owings Mills Boulevard, Fidler said.

Smith said he and his neighbors, however, had felt like the county had forgotten them as the years went by and the traffic increased.

A news story reported at the end of 1996 that the county had recently announced it had designated money for the project and would begin construction in 2002.

Frustrated, residents petitioned county officials repeatedly to accelerate the project, even conducting surveys that showed an estimated 5,000 vehicles a day using narrow Kingsbury Road, Smith said.

“Kingsbury was never meant to be a feeder road,” explained Smith, who said officials had promised the eventual extension of Cherry Hill Road the entire time he has lived on the road.

County officials responded by making Kingsbury one-way for several years and installing speed humps on Kingsbury and Timber Grove roads. Kingsbury reverted to two-way last summer after the short stretch of Timber Grove to Owings Mills Boulevard was permanently closed.

Closing Timber Grove Road before the bridge was finished meant less cut-through traffic. But neighborhood residents had to drive considerably out of the way to reach the previously accessible Owings Mills Boulevard.

Getting the extension underway was never a problem of residents opposing the construction, which is what can often stall this type of project, Fidler said.

“It doesn’t clear away houses, and it helps the community,” Fidler said.

County engineers are also looking at improving the condition of the road at either end of the extension, but there aren’t any immediate plans or designated funds, he said.

County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who had represented this area as a county council member, is expected to officially open the extension on July 19 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Editor's note: This reporter has lived on Kingsbury Road for more than a decade.